2 ms·

Would teaching the immune system to "forget" cover this situation (along with other autoimmune diseases) too?

• blorenz 3y ago
  As someone totally unqualified to make an assessment about this, I feel selectively forgetting is much harder than generalized forgetting. This would make the person vulnerable to multitudes of vectors.
  • robbiep 3y ago
    You’re basically right, we have no idea how to do this - we can help the immune system remember new things (ie we’ve started teaching it how to attack cancers that it has been ignoring) but when the body wants to go at something, the only way we’ve been able to get it to sort it’s shit out is to wipe out all the agents of the adaptive immune system and implant a new one (give someone a bone marrow transplant). This has resulted in cures for patients with MS, but is really risky and doesn’t scale.
    • justinclift 3y ago
      Doesn't catching measles somehow reset the immune system as well? As per articles a while ago like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-immune-amnesia https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211112-the-people-with-...
• f6v 3y ago
  I think Treg therapies is something that could potentially be used in both autoimmunity and transplantation. But the again, the idea isn’t new and has been around for 20 or more years. As they say, “lost in translation”.